


Surviving the Storm

by happyinthesilence



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:55:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1687427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyinthesilence/pseuds/happyinthesilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raleigh feels....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surviving the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> I have got to stop writing Raleigh feels..... also un-betad so please forgive my mistakes

Raleigh hated thunderstorms.

The water, the light, the noise, it never failed to drag him back to the horrors of war. Maybe it was a reminder of his hubris from a time when he thought he could beat the storms. The lesson in humility that followed was one he had barely survived.

In the years after Yancy, while he was at the wall, he learned to survive the thunder and lightning by making himself as small as possible. He spent countless nights curled tightly into himself, wrapped in his thin blanket whispering Yancy’s name.

The few times he actually fell asleep during a storm he woke soaked in sweat, gasping for breath, and reaching for Yancy as though his life depended on it. In the end though he was still always alone. He learned to breathe through the panic. He learned that as terrifying and heart-stopping as the storms were, they would pass. Eventually he would be able to breathe again and he would survive this storm like all the others.

That was what terrified him… being the one to survive the storm.

Raleigh hated Chuck Hansen.

The man was too much like a thunderstorm; loud, bright, and angry.

Chuck was a reminder of everything he had been. The man he had been when he had learned to fear the storms, and yet… Chuck was everything Raleigh had ever wanted to be. Stronger than he looked, smarter than he let on, and more compassionate than he would ever let anyone see.

The man willingly walked into his own death without hesitation and just like the storms he ended with light and sound and all things too much. And Raleigh survived the storm alone…again.

When Chuck’s pod was found 10 hours later Raleigh was utterly relieved. Which was insane because he was terrified of Chuck. He hated him, like he hated thunderstorms. Didn’t he?

In the weeks that followed he watched from a short distance as Chuck learned how to be Chuck again. First he learned to breathe on his own again, then talk again, move his body again, speak again, begin to walk again.

And on and on it went as Herc and even Mako helped Chuck put the pieces of himself back into place. The thing was, even with all the pieces in place it still wasn’t Chuck.

Instead of being loud, bright, and angry, he was quiet, dim, and almost vacant. It was Raleigh’s turn to give Chuck the final piece to fit back. Because as much as Raleigh hated storms, the thought of living in a world where Chuck Hansen was nothing but a shell of the intricately vibrant man he used to be causes a level of panic he had never experienced before.

Raleigh never expected to survive without Yancy. He never expected to fight in a Gipsy again. He never expected for Mako to fill the rips in his soul as well as she had. And he never expected to realize how deeply he needed for Chuck to be ok.

He never expected his own personal thunderstorm to be the one thing he couldn’t live without.

He never expected to love Chuck Hansen just as much as he hated storms.

But as he slipped into the hospital room and Chuck rasped out a “Whadya want Rah-leigh?” with a slight spark in his eyes, Raleigh knew without a shadow of a doubt this was one battle he could win.

Because this was one storm he wouldn’t have to survive alone.


End file.
